HomePNA or HPNA is a de facto home networking standard developed by the Home Phoneline Networking Alliance. HPNA allows all the components of a home network to interact over the home's existing telephone wiring without disrupting voice capability. In the same way a LAN operates, home networking processes, manages, transports and stores information, which enables disparate devices in a home network such as telephones, fax machines, desktops, laptops, printers, scanners and Web cameras to connect and integrate over a existing wiring topology.
To create the home network, personal computers may be equipped with a HPNA network and HPNA software. An HPNA network may be implemented as an internal PC network interface card (NICs) that includes telephone jacks on the back for connection to the network. An HPNA network may also be implemented in an external USB adapter that plugs into the USB port on the PC on one end, while the other end connects to the phone line at the wall jack. Additionally, an HPNA network may be implemented as part of the chipset or ACR (Advanced Communications Riser).
FIG. 1 illustrates an embodiment of a home phone line network that complies with the Home Phoneline Networking Alliance (HPNA) specification version 2.0. The network allows multiple computers to communicate through telephone wire of residential homes. The network includes an application program running on the PC called a host media access controller (MAC) 112, and a control chip 100 for implementing the HPNA 2.0 specification, which is included on a network interface card. The control chip 100 includes a Media Independent Interface (MII) 106, a Media Access Controller (MAC) 108, and a Physical Layer (PHY) 110.
The host MAC 112 sends data packets out over the home network, and receives data packets from the network, through the control chip 100. The control chip 100 communicates with an analog front end (AFE) 104 that processes signals between the chip 100 and the transmission channel, which in this case are the telephone lines of the house that are accessed via a phone jack 102. The AFE 104 converts outgoing digital signals into analog signals, and converts incoming analog signals into digital signals.
When the host MAC 112 transmits a frame of data over the telephone lines, it is possible that another station on the network may be in the process of transmitting a frame of data. This situation may result in a packet collision, which degrades overall network performance. There are various schemes to resolve collisions, but such schemes typically require a user to scope signals over the network to determine whether the collision detection and resolution are operating properly.
Accordingly, what is needed is a method and system for verifying collision detection and resolution on a home network without requiring a user to monitor activity on the transmission channel. The present invention addresses such a need.